Category Archives: Monetize Video

UK indie film distribution crisis

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Alex Ritman reports on Variety that U.K. Indie Film Distribution Hits Breaking Point as ‘Santosh’ Saga Exposes Market Crisis: It’s an ‘Utter S—-show’.

The article discusses the latest crisis in the UK independent film distribution market and highlights the struggles faced by films like “Santosh“, a Hindi-language crime thriller, which despite critical acclaim and international recognition, had difficulty finding a UK distributor.

It points to several factors contributing to this crisis, including:

  • High ticket price splits favouring cinemas
  • Unprofitable Pay-One TV windows
  • Declining revenues from DVDs without a corresponding rise in VOD revenues.

The result is a highly cautious market in which distributors are hesitant to invest in arthouse or foreign language films.

He quotes an executive who confided to him:

“Nobody’s buying and everybody’s terribly cautious. It’s an utter shitshow.”

The British Film Institute (BFI) offers support for indie film distribution through various  initiatives to bring film to a wider UK audience. They also publish a spreadsheet of the weekly UK box office.

My take: different continent, similar story. In Canada, we simply don’t have access to cinema screens. In the UK, attempting to make money from independent films faces this plus other barriers. Is it simply that stories are not connecting with their audiences? Or is the problem something much more complex about scale, awareness and access?

The Horror Movie Report just released!

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Stephen Follows has just released The Horror Movie Report, the most comprehensive case study of the horror genre ever, with data from over 27,000 films.

The report is offered in English and Spanish and comes in two editions:

  • Film Fan Edition is aimed at general audiences. (£24.99)
  • Film Professional Edition is designed for those in the film industry and includes extra insights on profitability, and budgets, and comes with all the data as spreadsheets. (£79.99)

At over 400 pages, the report contains chapters on:

  1. Horror Audiences
  2. Subgenres
  3. Script Origins
  4. Cast
  5. Crew
  6. Budgets
  7. Financials
  8. Box Office
  9. Profitability
  10. Other Income
  11. Film Festivals
  12. Post Production
  13. Posters and Marketing
  14. Objectionable Content
  15. Cultural Impact

Stephen is a leading film industry analyst known for his extensive research on film statistics; I’ve quoted his posts many times.

See the sample pages.

My take: Peter, this would make a great holiday gift for someone who aspires to produce a profitable film, no matter what the genre. The Professional Edition even comes with downloadable Excel files. Excel files!

Calls for an indie film marketplace and discoverability

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Brian Welk reports on IndieWire that Study Reveals Untapped Market of 40 Million People Who Will Pay for Indie Films on Streaming.

He sets the context with:

“After a decade of massive growth, the indie film industry hit its peak in 2017 with just over 200 independent films in theatrical release. That’s also when streaming began to make itself known in a very big way, and the number of indie films in theaters began to plummet.

Netflix and the like spent a few years gobbling up indie movies out of festivals, but that’s dramatically slowed since 2021. Viewership for indies on streaming dipped from 30M in 2020 to just 18M by 2022. Indie films — and the audience for them — are being left behind.“

Former Sundance Institute CEO Keri Putnam led the “US Independent Film Audience & Landscape Study” a 118-page report available at indiefilmlandscape.org and believes there’s a massive audience waiting for indie movies because the biggest challenge facing independent films is finding them.

Her key recommendations for the indie film sector are:

  1. Combat market fragmentation with a new, consolidated streaming destination
  2. Invest in Theatrical Exhibition: Build data and marketing capacity at Festivals and Independent Cinemas
  3. Invest in 21st Century Streaming Public Media and Include Scripted Films on PBS
  4. Leverage Free, Mass Market Platforms: Build a field-wide vertical on a mass-market free streaming platform
  5. Expand and Engage Audiences of Color
  6. Thoughtfully enlist Brands and Philanthropy to Fund Production and Marketing
  7. Innovate on Sector-Wide Marketing
  8. Deepen and Enrich Engagement with Younger Audiences and Fan Communities
  9. Conduct More Research and Share Data Across the Field
  10. Build a Trade Organization to Facilitate Field-Wide Research, Innovation, Public Policy Advocacy

Read the full report.

My take: an indie film marketplace and discoverability. Yes, the two things every indie filmmaker wishes for. I know I’ve been searching for the last twenty years however it’s almost impossible to accomplish in this digital age, which is maddening because digitization was supposed to level the playing field — but what happened was that everyone made their own field. “Build it and they will come” is almost never true now.

Technology saves “last Beatles song”

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The Beatles have just released their last single, Now and Then.

It appears as a free VEVO music video as well as these for-purchase products: various versions of vinyl and cassette.

“Now and Then” was a demo John Lennon recorded in The Dakota in the late 1970’s. The main reason it’s The Beatles’ last single is because until now it was too hard to separate John’s vocals from the piano notes. Technology to the rescue:

Want to know more? Check out this Parlogram documentary.

My take: I like this video most when it starts incorporating images from “Then” with footage from “Now” viz. 1:47, 1:55, etc. I would have liked to have seen much more of this technique used. This is truly the visualization of Now and Then — show us more!

Unfortunately, I’m not overly enamoured with the song itself; I find it middling and melancholic. I also don’t like:

  • The graphics and the cover image — boring!
  • The first few shots of the video are over-sharpened and plop us in the “uncanny valley” — not a good start.
  • The lip sync is poor — if you’re going to use AI, why not go all the way and use AI to reshape the mouths for perfect sync?
  • I think they missed a great opportunity to have Paul and Ringo sing verses in their own voices. Again, why not go all in and use AI to voice clone George and have him sing a verse too?

As to “last singles” — I think they should give this treatment the last song the Beatles actually recorded together: The End. Although, after 60 years, perhaps it’s just time to move on.

The ticktokification of media and how to stop doomscrolling

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Enrico Tartarotti of @enricotartarotti on Youtube asks the question: Short Form Content Is BROKEN. Can We Fix It?

Enrico believes, in his own words:

“TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels have taken over the internet and completely changed how we view content by spreading short form content and videos everywhere. But… they are already failing. Meanwhile, long form content is having a renaissance. There is a way to save our brains from frying off retention hacks and that is… joining forces.”

He presents his case in five chapters.

  • Part 1: Why everything became a copy of TikTok
  • Part 2: Attention spans and retention black holes
  • Part 3: The Problem — falling apart
  • Part 4: The other side
  • Part 5: The Solution — the missing link

His solution? Enrico proposes changes that will harness society’s doomscrolling dopamine addiction.

  1. Link long and short content in a meaningful way, so that shorts lead to more in-depth media
  2. Change what the algorithm optimizes for, to packages of both short and corresponding longer media
  3. Allow creators to build real businesses, so they can live meaningful lives and still contribute to society.

Well worth 15 minutes!

My take: Fascinating! I will admit to wasting hours of time scrolling through short form content and I detest the “endless scroll” design of modern media apps. I like that Enrico links the rise in short form content with the rise in the sheer number of videos, suggesting that this is merely a solution to discoverability.

Streaming films are pirated immediately

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Tyler Aquilina reports in Variety on The Most Pirated Film Titles of 2022.

“Exclusive data provided to Variety Intelligence Platform by piracy-focused research firm Muso measured 2022 activity across a wide range of piracy sites, including illegal streaming, torrent, web download and stream-ripping platforms. The results reveal that superhero films held a dominant share of illegal viewing in 2022, with Marvel and DC releases collectively accounting for 70% of piracy demand (that is, illicit streams, downloads and the like) for the top 10 most pirated film titles of the year.”

Here are the top ten 2022 most pirated movies:

  1. Spider-Man: No Way Home (21%)
  2. The Batman (13%)
  3. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (10%)
  4. Thor: Love and Thunder (9%)
  5. Black Adam (9%)
  6. Uncharted (8%)
  7. Eternals (8%)
  8. Top Gun: Maverick (8%)
  9. Jurassic World Dominion (7%)
  10. Encanto (6%)

“Spikes in a film’s piracy tend to coincide with its release on digital platforms, which enables the availability of high-quality pirated streams or downloads, as opposed to bootleg ‘cam-rip’ versions illicitly recorded in a theater.”

My take: there are two takeaways for me here: 1) once a film streams, it will be pirated immediately (not sure about VOD though,) and therefore 2) theatrical distribution is still a viable way to generate revenue and word-of-mouth for a film.

Save the Pic-a-Flic Video Collection!

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SIGN THE PETITION NOW!

Roxanne Egan-Elliott reports in the Times Colonist that Victoria’s Pic-A-Flic Video is closing after 40 years:

“Pic-A-Flic Video, one of the last places in Greater Victoria to rent a movie or TV series, plans to close its doors in September after four decades. Opened in 1983, Pic-A-Flic has more than 25,000 titles, from silent movies to new releases, most of which are not available on streaming services or anywhere else, owner Kent Bendall said.”

What to do with all those DVDs?

A change.org petition says: “We cannot allow this collection to be scattered to the winds without having a serious conversation about how it could be permanently housed by UVic and the Greater Victoria Public Library.”

My take: I have a modest proposal! How about the RBCM buy the collection AND hire Kent Bendall to continue operating a video store from Old Town or some other suitable space?

More on ad-supported movie distribution

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Brian Welk, reports on IndieWire, about Inside the Strange and Prickly World of Ad-Supported Indie Film Distribution.

He writes:

“AVOD (advertising-based video on demand) streamers often license unknown or obscure movies in bulk from distributors like FilmRise, Gravitas Ventures, Shout! Factory, Cinedigm, and… Homestead Entertainment, a tiny distributor in Laguna Beach, California that specializes in working with filmmakers to access non-exclusive AVOD deals on dozens of services.”

He adds:

“Also in the game are self-service film aggregators. FilmHub cofounder Alan s’Escragnolle said his company has distributed more than 17,000 movies since January 2020, supplying as much as 15 percent of Tubi’s 50,000-film library. He said FilmHub works with upward of 100 services and claimed distributors have started leaning on them to reach more niche or international streamers.”

Note that at pennies per view, millions of streams are required to make serious money.

My take: this is empowering. It kinda hearkens back to the Roger Corman days when cheaply-made “B” movies connected with their audiences and launched the careers of many directors and actors. The key is to start with the audience, reverse-engineer a riveting story for them and then make the film reasonably. And to stomach ads… gulp!

Titles and Thumbnail are Critical to Your Success

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Kent Lamm of Standard Story Company warns that YouTube will BURY your films without this. The this? Your title and thumbnail.

He says:

“Getting your film SEEN in the Age of YouTube is a different game. Your title and thumbnail have a huge effect in how many people will watch your movie. Give your short film or feature its best shot by optimizing your title and thumbnail and planning ahead.”

The Title should be:

  1. meaningful for your film,
  2. unique,
  3. catchy,
  4. grammatically simple,
  5. seo-able, and
  6. have an available domain name.

He admires the way Omeleto titles their films: Logline sentence. | Film Title

He also thinks getting the genre into the title helps.

The Thumbnail should be:

  1. a compelling image that’s going to get people interested,
  2. most likely a frame-grabbed close up of the main character,
  3. but why not get some dedicated stills on set?

My take: This stuff can’t be an afterthought. In fact, I think that after the film title, the film logo and one central image can really help you fine tune the script, narrow the audience and solidify the entertainment promise (probably because I worked as a graphic designer for many years.) Oh, as to the title, you might as well choose from the beginning of the alphabet rather than the bottom half.

TikTok rewards its creative stars

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Zheping Huang says on Bloomberg that TikTok Turns on the Money Machine.

He reports:

“The most downloaded app of 2021, TikTok has surged to a billion-plus global users, who consume an infinite feed of short clips delivered instantly by algorithm. While the platform has long helped creators… step to the center of the attention economy, the company is only now starting to cash in on all that popularity. TikTok raked in nearly $4 billion in revenue in 2021, mostly from advertising, and is projected to hit $12 billion this year, according to the research firm eMarketer. That would make it bigger than Twitter Inc. and Snap Inc. combined — three years after it started accepting ads on the platform.”

“With a billion monthly active users, TikTok is still smaller than Facebook (2.9 billion) and Instagram (2 billion), also part of Meta. Yet TikTok’s programming is proving unusually compelling: Its average user in the US now spends about 29 hours a month with the service, more than Facebook (16 hours) and Instagram (8 hours) put together, according to mobile researcher Data.ai. Scott Galloway, a professor at New York University Stern School of Business, has likened the service’s addictiveness to opium.”

“TikTok is starting to show the profit potential in countries like the US. The company is now charging as much as $2.6 million for a one-day run of a TopView ad — the first thing that pops up on users’ feed when they open the app — roughly four times what it charged a year ago, according to a document reviewed by Bloomberg News. A 30-second Super Bowl ad runs about $6.5 million — but TikTok can charge that rate every day.”

“TikTok set up a $200 million fund in 2020 to pay creators to get views, and pledged to grow the pool to $1 billion in the US over the next three years.”

My take: this fascinates me. Creators tell stories to audiences, almost always mediated by some platform. These platforms create the commercial market. Once upon a time it was Hollywood. Then it was network television. Then it was cable television. For a brief moment it was VHS and DVD. Then online and Netflix et al. Today, the online space has short-circuited these markets, allowing audiences and creators to interact with no friction. I’m amazed at how innovative it all is!